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  • Published: 29 September 2026
  • ISBN: 9781529970982
  • Imprint: Vintage Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 256
  • RRP: $28.00

The Girls

  • John Bowen


Macabre comedy, crime thriller, cosy romance: The Girls is a weird and wonderful tale of two women murderously desperate to stay together

In summer, and particularly when the wind blows south-west across the lawn, the sceptic tank gives out a strong stench… ‘Oh, it is a body,’ the girls say. ‘We have a body in there. No one you know. It decomposes, of course, but so slowly one quite despairs.’

In their lovely, quiet Cotswolds village, Janet and Susan are known to the villagers simply as ‘the girls’. Partners in love and work, co-proprietors of a picturesque shop, they lead an enviable, enviably settled life.

But when a moment of small, surprising passion intrudes into the equilibrium of their world, the girls’ lives take a deeply unsettling turn. First comes motherhood. Then comes murder.

Part-macabre comedy, part-crime thriller, part-cosy romance, John Bowen’s The Girls is a novel like none other. Told with warmth, affection and fun, yet laced with darkness and unease, 'the girls' will ensure you never look on Middle England quite so quaintly again.

‘Absolutely wicked’ Armistead Maupin

‘Startlingly offbeat’ Gore Vidal

‘[For] people who like Myra Breckinridge as well as Miss Marple; fans of Beryl Bainbridge, Russell Greenan and Patricia Highsmith; those who feel Barbara Pym-ish on some days and Stephen King-ish on others . . . The Girls charms us as only certain tales ‘of village life’ can’ Washington Post

  • Published: 29 September 2026
  • ISBN: 9781529970982
  • Imprint: Vintage Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 256
  • RRP: $28.00

Praise for The Girls

[A] well-crafted novel of murder and mystery . . . Bowen’s handling of the novel’s conclusion—elegiac, compassionate and redemptive—is satisfying; his true subject becomes the nature of friendship

The New York Times Book Review

This is a charming little novel about two women who share a home, a garden, and later, a baby. What happens when the accidental father returns? Fans of Patricia Highsmith and Edward Gorey (whose delightful designs adorn the cover) should like The Girls

San Francisco Bay Times

Deadpan, sly, and threatening . . . I’m sure I’m not the only reader who thought of this book as his own secret, to be recommended only to the most unusual of friends, but now it’s back in the world and will hopefully garner the cult audience it deserves

Slate